Republicans have a lot to say about the immorality of saddling the next generation with our national debt. But when it comes to leaving them a wrecked, depleted, and rapidly warming planet, they are taking the exact opposite line.

That's especially odd when you consider how important that next generation is to the faltering GOP — and how broadly united those voters, known as Millennials, are in their concern over global warming and other energy and environment issues.

GOP leaders claim to be courting these young adults, but that apparently extends only to their use of Twitter and promises of a "hip-hop" party makeover. Meanwhile, they seem intent on not just opposing but wildly denouncing and denigrating this generation's most unifying issue.

Even the most senior Republican leaders, and the top GOP lawmakers on energy and environment committees, keep shooting themselves in the foot by spewing antiquated, anti-science nonsense.

If they continue this type of Neanderthal posturing, the GOP is going to lose something a lot more valuable than its old moderates, like Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter, who last week switched parties to become a Democrat.

Those who study Millennial politics say that the Republican Party is on the verge of completely alienating the coming generation — just as previous controversial platforms it has endorsed ensured that the party kissed off such huge demographic swaths as African-Americans, single women, and Hispanics, who at present vote overwhelmingly Democratic.

While the issue of climate change, and its particular effect on future generations, has long been on the back burner in Washington, it appears to be heading for the headlines. President Barack Obama has said that he wants to pass a comprehensive environment and energy law this year. That bill, the "American Clean Energy and Security Act" (ACES), co-authored by Democrats — Massachusetts congressman Edward Markey and California congressman Henry Waxman — is now being finalized, following hearings that coincided with Earth Day two weeks ago. It attempts to reduce carbon emissions, promote the use of renewable-energy sources, invest in "smart grid" infrastructure, and create green-industry jobs.

"There is no question in my mind that climate change, and the effort to address these issues, could catalyze a generation," says Lawrence Rasky, chairman of Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications in Boston and former advisor to Markey.

But could it also bring Democratic Party dominance? For good or ill, that's what's coming to Capitol Hill if the early tendency of Millennials — who voted more than two-to-one for Obama — solidifies into long-term political allegiance.

The math is not complicated. At 100 million strong, Millennials — those born between roughly 1980 and 2000 — are the single largest generation of Americans, ever; and, according to a new report authored by Ruy Teixeira, analyst with the left-leaning Center for American Progress, another 4.5 million of them reach voting age every year. By 2016, they will already comprise a third of the total vote.

Might as well jump Last Thursday, Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island — the last of his legendary clan in Congress — announced that he will not run for re-election.

Elephant in the Room Platoons of state Republicans, energized by Scott Brown's stunning victory over Democrat Martha Coakley last week, are setting their sights on November.

'Tea' is for terrorism A year ago, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) produced a memo outlining the growing threat posed to this country from right-wing extremists. It compared the situation to that of the early 1990s — which culminated in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168.

Does not compute Though he’s infamous for his aversion to computers, McCain is actually no Luddite.

The shape of things to come The Democratic front-runners and the Republican establishment will be making critical decisions in the coming weeks that will shape the course of the race.

Elena Kagan’s shaky record As a potential Obama nominee for Supreme Court justice, Elena Kagan has liberal bona fides and the likely support of the right. But if her record is any indication, she’s more likely to side with the conservative bloc on matters of executive power and war-time presidential authority.

An Obama confidant on the surge in Afghanistan Twenty-four hours before President Barack Obama announced a 30,000-troop escalation of the Afghan War, one of his key foreign policy advisors provided a view of the president’s thinking at Brown University.

Tea Party Progressives? When Democrat Peter Smulowitz celebrated his victory in the special-election primary for State Senate earlier this month in the back room of Masala Art restaurant in Needham, no bigwigs from his party were in attendance.

That’s what he said More than any other presidential candidate, Barack Obama owes his success to sheer rhetorical power.

MRS. WARREN GOES TO WASHINGTON | March 21, 2013 Elizabeth Warren was the only senator on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, aside from the chair and ranking minority, to show up at last Thursday's hearing on indexing the minimum wage to inflation.

MARCH MADNESS | March 12, 2013 It's no surprise that the coming weekend's Saint Patrick's Day celebrations have become politically charged, given the extraordinary convergence of electoral events visiting South Boston.

LABOR'S LOVE LOST | March 08, 2013 Steve Lynch is winning back much of the union support that left him in 2009.

AFTER MARKEY, GET SET, GO | February 20, 2013 It's a matter of political decorum: when an officeholder is running for higher office, you wait until the election has been won before publicly coveting the resulting vacancy.